Miscellaneous

Yet again, I'm grateful I'm not a driver. This 'industrial action' has led to the usual would-be reassuring paraphrases (delivered with a decidedly worried look) of Corporal Jones's injunction: 'Don't Panic!' As in Dad's Army, the result can only be panic - and panic buying is in fact the rational response to the situation, which is why people do it. Panic buy and you'll end up with something; don't panic buy and you might well end up with nothing, because of those other people panic buying. And the Grangemouth situation is of course far worse than it might seem, as it will take three weeks, maybe more - no one really knows - to get it up and running again after the strike. If I was a driver, I'd be down at the pumps right now.
Meanwhile, things are now so bad for Oor Gordie that it's getting silly - this today, among much else. If the Tories have any sense (always a big if), they'll start being nice to him, in a faintly patronisng manner. After all, they need to cherish him if they're to win the next election - almost any other candidate would stand a better chance than poor old Broon now.
An interesting report from Chechnya here. Whatever's really going on, it's another heartening example of the human urge - and, happily, ability - to rebuild after destruction. The state of Grozny was indescribable - I remember trying to watch a documentary about it and finding it literally too much to bear. There was no longer anything recognisable as a city - and yet now, a few years later, it's back. It's like all those continental towns and cities rebuilt - often just as they were - from piles of rubble after the world wars. Cities, the greatest of human constructs, are very hard to destroy. Even Carthage, razed to the ground, rose again.